Tuesday, October 12, 2010

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang (2010)

This was the Rumpus Book Club's September selection. I *tried* to finish it before the chat but didn't quite make it and didn't feel well once the chat rolled around. I did finish it in 2-3 sittings, though. It's an easy read in terms of actual sentence structure but a tad difficult in that I found none of the characters likable at all. Even the less outright obnoxious characters were not likable.

It's the story of a MFA poetry student and his life afterward. What is done well is the depiction of graduate school. I wasn't in a MFA program but I was in an English grad department that included an MFA. Sounded about right to me.But the main character annoyed me to no end and is definitely one of the more self-involved characters I've ever read.

That's not to say I didn't like the book. I did, very much, which is quite a feat by the author to make me like a book that contains no character I like.

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